Article Index

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Will Hamlin , a professor of English at Washington State University, has been named a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York City. H e is one of 190 artists, scientists and scholars to receive a 2008 Guggenheim; successful candidates were chosen from more than 2,600 applicants.  

“I’m deeply honored to have been chosen as a Guggenheim Fellow,” said Hamlin.   “There are few organizations for which I have greater respect. The Guggenheim Foundation has been supporting the arts and humanities for almost a century, funding poets, historians, musicians and scholars all over North and South America.”  

Hamlin, 51, has been a faculty member at WSU since 2001, and the director of English Graduate Studies since 2003. He teaches Shakespeare and Renaissance literature at WSU.  

“Professor Hamlin’s Guggenheim is confirmation of his outstanding work as a scholar.  That he coordinates our graduate programs in English is a measure of our commitment to ensuring that students have direct contact with our very best faculty,” said Erich Lear, dean of the College of Liberal Arts.  

 

“I congratulate Will on his receipt of this highly competitive and prestigious award," said Robert Bates, WSU provost and executive vice president. "The Guggenheim Fellowship should significantly advance Will’s career by allowing him time to concentrate on his scholarship. It is also a significant honor for our university; Guggenheim awards are among the relatively few fellowships in the Arts and Humanities that count towards  Association of American Universities membership.  I’m very pleased to recognize this fine faculty achievement.”

 

Hamlin is currently working on an extensive research project dealing with the early English reception of the writings of the 16th-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne.  

 

William Shakespeare famously borrowed from Montaigne in his play "The Tempest," but many hundreds of other English men and women also read Montaigne and recorded their reactions, and Hamlin intends to trace the patterns of interest and response among such members of the English populace.   Ultimately his goal is to examine disparities in reception according to class, gender and education, as well as to better understand the formation of popular versus critical judgments of literary value.  

The Guggenheim Foundation offers fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them as they engage in research and artistic creation under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color or creed.  

According to the Foundation’s Web page, “Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded to men and women who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.  The Foundation consults with distinguished scholars and artists regarding the accomplishments and promise of the applicants and presents this evidence to the committee of selection.”  

As a Guggenheim Fellow, Hamlin plans to spend several months conducting archival research in London, Paris, Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as in such American cities as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles.   He will be relieved of teaching and administrative duties during the academic year 2008-2009 and return to the classroom in August 2009.  

His first book, "The Image of America in Montaigne, Spenser, and Shakespeare," was published in New York by St. Martin’s Press in 1995, and more recently he has published "Tragedy and Scepticism in Shakespeare’s England" (London: Macmillan, 2005).  He has also authored over 35 essays and reviews on diverse topics, including the "Essays" of Montaigne and the plays of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, John Marston, Elizabeth Cary and John Webster.  

Prior to his arrival at WSU, he taught for a dozen years at St. Mary’s College of California and at Idaho State University. Hamlin holds a bachelor degree in Philosophy from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and a doctorate in English from the University of Washington in Seattle.  

He has previously held research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the British Academy, the Renaissance Society of America, the Huntington Library and the Idaho Humanities Council.  

Guggenheim Fellowship release: http://www.gf.org/April022008.html